1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to wireless communication systems and, more particularly, to a gain calibration scheme for use in wireless communication devices.
2. Description of Related Art
Mobile communication has changed the way people communicate and mobile phones have been transformed from a luxury item to an essential part of every day life. The use of mobile phones today is generally dictated by social situations, rather than being hampered by location or technology. While voice connections fulfill the basic need to communicate, and mobile voice connections continue to filter even further into the fabric of every day life, the mobile Internet and moving video, including broadcast video, are the next steps in the mobile communication revolution. The mobile Internet is poised to become a common source of everyday information, and easy, versatile mobile access to this data will be taken for granted. Similarly, video transmissions to handheld user equipment will allow movies and television programs to be viewed on the go.
Third generation (3G) cellular networks have been specifically designed to fulfill many, if not all, of these future demands. As these services grow in popularity and usage, factors such as cost efficient optimization of network capacity and quality of service (QoS) will become even more essential to cellular operators than it is today. These factors may be achieved with careful network planning and operation, improvements in transmission methods, and advances in receiver techniques. To this end, carriers want technologies that will allow them to increase downlink throughput and, in turn, offer advanced QoS capabilities and speeds that rival those delivered by cable modem and/or DSL service providers. In this regard, networks based on Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) technology or Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) technology may make the delivery of data to end users a more feasible option for today's wireless carriers.
The General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Enhanced Data rates for GSM (EDGE) technologies may be utilized for enhancing the data throughput of present second generation (2G) systems such as GSM. The Global System for Mobile telecommunications (GSM) technology may support data rates of up to 14.4 kilobits per second (Kbps), while the GPRS technology may support data rates of up to 115 Kbps by allowing up to 8 data time slots per time division multiple access (TDMA) frame. The GSM technology, by contrast, may allow one data time slot per TDMA frame. The EDGE technology may support data rates of up to 384 Kbps. The EDGE technology may utilizes 8 phase shift keying (8-PSK) modulation for providing higher data rates than those that may be achieved by GPRS technology. The GPRS and EDGE technologies may be referred to as “2.5G” technologies.
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) technology with theoretical data rates as high as 2 Mbps, is an adaptation of the WCDMA 3G system by GSM. One reason for the high data rates that may be achieved by UMTS technology stems from the 5 MHz WCDMA channel bandwidths versus the 200 KHz GSM channel bandwidths. The High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) technology is an Internet Protocol (IP) based service, oriented for data communications, which adapts WCDMA to support data transfer rates on the order of 10 megabits per second (Mbits/s). Developed by the 3G Partnership Project (3GPP) group, the HSDPA technology achieves higher data rates through a plurality of methods.
Where HSDPA is a downlink protocol, High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) technology addresses the uplink communication. HSUPA is also specified by the 3GPP group to provide a complement data link to HSDPA. HSUPA also offers broadband IP and is based on software. HSUPA also extends the WCDMA bit rates, but the uplink rates may be less than the downlink rates of HSDPA. Where prior protocols severely limited the uplink connections, HSUPA allows for much higher uplink rates.
Likewise, standards for Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcasting (DTTB) provide for transmission of broadcast video. Three leading DTTB systems are the Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) system, the Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting-Terrestrial (ISDB-T) system, and the Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB) system, which includes terrestrial transmission under Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) specifications and transmissions to handheld devices under Digital Video Broadcasting-Handheld (DVB-H) specifications. DVB-H is an adaptation of DVB-T to handheld units, in which additional features are implemented to meet specific requirements of handheld units. DVB-H allows downlink channels with high data rates and may be made as enhancements to current mobile wireless networks. DVB-H may use time slicing technology to reduce power consumption of handheld devices.
In order to practice the various communication protocols, a wireless communication device is utilized. For a wireless communication device to participate in wireless communication, it typically includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). The transmitter typically includes a data modulation stage, one or more intermediate frequency (IF) stages, and a power amplifier. The data modulation stage converts raw data into baseband signals in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard. The one or more IF stages mix the baseband signals with a local oscillator signal to produce radio frequency (RF) signals. The power amplifier amplifies the RF signals prior to transmission via an antenna.
The receiver is coupled to an antenna and typically includes a low noise amplifier, one or more intermediate frequency stages, a filtering stage, and a data recovery stage. The low noise amplifier receives inbound RF signals via the antenna and amplifies them. The one or more IF stages mix the amplified RF signals with a local oscillator signal to convert the amplified RF signal into baseband signals or IF signals. The filtering stage filters the baseband signals or the IF signals to attenuate unwanted out of band signals to produce filtered signals. The data recovery stage recovers raw data from the filtered signals in accordance with the particular wireless communication standard.
In a typical RF front end, components closest to the antenna in a transmitting path are generally analog components. Thus, after a digital-to-analog conversion of a transmit signal, the analog signal is coupled through analog components, such as an analog filter, mixer, one or more drivers and a power amplifier. There may be other stages as well. Further, one or more of these components may have variable gain properties in order to adjust the gain of the signal at various stages of the transmitting path. For analog stages (which may have one or more analog cells), the gain is controlled by use of analog gain schemes, in which one or more analog cells have the analog gain adjusted. For example, transistors or passive components (such as resistors) may be switched in or out within an analog circuit to adjust the gain of a particular analog cell.
However, the use of analog gain control with these components may have some disadvantages when it comes to performance. Although analog stages are typically calibrated at the factory based on some performance parameter, such as maximum output power, high accuracy may be difficult to obtain in these analog stages since the granularity between the discrete analog gain steps may be limited by the analog components themselves. That is, analog gain adjustments of analog circuitry in many RF front ends lack fine adjustment steps in controlling the gain. Gain adjustments in the analog stages may be so coarse that fine adjustments of the gain may not be possible by use of analog means only.
Furthermore, gain control in the various analog stages may be further limited due to the presence of a plurality of analog cells. For example, if sufficient manufacturing or operating variations are present, there may be poor gain stability among the cells, due to temperature, process or power supply variations, so that fine tracking of the gain among the stages may be difficult to obtain for all operating conditions. Other problems may be present as well. Thus, it would be advantageous to implement a digital control of gain in the analog cells, in which the digital gain control of analog stages may provide a smaller incremental step in adjusting the gain.
Therefore, a need exists for a technique to use the existing analog gain adjustment circuitry, but to provide a digital gain control that allows for a finer granularity in adjusting the gain for improved performance. With the implementation of the digital gain adjustment, a calibration scheme may also be implemented to use the finer digital gain adjustment to compensate for variations in the analog gain values at one or more of the analog gain steps.